Koho Yamamoto (born April 14, 1922) is an American artist known for her artistry in Sumi-e, a style of Japanese brushwork using black ink.
In World War II, as a result of widespread anti-Japanese hostility and the issuance of Executive Order 9066 by then President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she and her father and siblings were forcibly imprisoned in three different internment camps,[2] places of detainment established by the federal government for people of Japanese ancestry living on the west coast of the United States.
[4] In 1942, while confined at Topaz, Yamamoto studied with the renowned artist and University of California, Berkeley professor, Chiura Obata and became his apprentice.
Obata started a school at the prison and it was there that he taught Koho and gave her her artist's name which means “Red Harbor.”[1][2][7] His gesture was also recognized as a symbol of spiritual succession.
You have to make mistakes.”[9] She studied Sumi-e with Berkeley Art Professor Chiura Obata in the Topaz Relocation Center in Millard Co., UT.
In 1958 she moved to 24 Cornelia ST. in New York City, where she made ends meet by holding a variety of jobs, all while continuing to pursue her passion with studying art.
In 1973, she founded the Koho School of Sumi-e on the corner of Macdougal and Houston Streets in New York City where she taught traditional Japanese ink painting techniques.
[11] In 1989, her paintings were displayed with those of other internees and noted artists like Henry Sugimoto and Miné Okubo at a show in Hastings-on-Hudson that recounted the persecution of Japanese-Americans after World War II.
[1][2] In 2021, she exhibited 10 abstract paintings at the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in a show called Koho Yamamoto: Under a Dark Moon.
[13] She has exhibited at the Leonovich Gallery in New York[1] and one of her paintings is in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
[1] On her 101st birthday she had an exhibition called “Koho Yamamoto: 101 Springs”[14] displaying 17 of her Sumi-e paintings she made with traditional materials from Japan such as sumo ink, and rice paper.
This piece like most in the show is characterized by an evident joy, making it emotionally memorable.” Blue Koho Yamamoto Painting at the National Museum of American History [1]